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Published: September 3rd 2005
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Hi again,
From Xi'an I took a train to Lanzhou, another city I have already visited. Went straight to the bus station, only to discover that there is a newer bus station that does not appear in my book and I have to go there. By the time I arrived I missed the bus to Xiahe, so I had to make the journey in two steps.
Took a bus to Linxia, which is a Muslim city. The ride was very nice. Driving again through small Chinese villages, watching the fields and the workers, feeling the country side of China again after such a long time in the big cities. The area is full of odd looking mosques - Chinese architecture, even Chinese towers, but the Muslim signs on top.
From Linxia I took another bus to Xiahe, which was riding through the same scenery. Arrived to Xiahe tired but happy, feeling like traveling again.
Xiahe is best known for its important Tibetan monastery, Lamrang. It's the most important monastery outside of Tibet itself, and is one of the six major centers of the Yellow Hat Section of Tibetan Buddhists, also known as Gelugpa. The monastery is located in the middle of
the town, and actually it feels like this IS the town. A monastery is more than a temple or two. A monastery has many temples, many colleges for educating monks in different fields, and many buildings used for housing of all the monks. It is really a small city of its own.
The whole monastery is surrounded by a kora. a kora is a Tibetan name for a path that circles something, and pilgrims always walk the koras. Always clockwise. This kora takes about an hour to walk, and almost all the way there are long corridors of praying wheels. A praying wheel comes in different forms. There are small ones that people hold in their hand and spin, and there are big ones that you spin as you walk by, and there are even bigger ones that you need to pull while walking around it. Either way there is a scroll inside the praying wheel with a prayer, and when the wheel is spinning the prayer is sent to the sky. So Tibetan always spin them.
There are big koras around the whole monastery and small koras around every important building. The whole place is full of pilgrims walking
Take off your shoes!
Monks' shoes at an entrance of a temple. around, spinning wheels of all sizes, bowing to different buildings, touching some stones with their hands of their heads, and so on. Some pilgrims don't walk the kora, but instead they lie down on the floor with their hands reaching forward as far as they can, then they stand up, walk three steps, and get down on the floor again. This way it takes more than an hour to complete the kora...
I took a tour inside the monastery, and we got to visit some of the colleges and the temples. Inside there are many pilgrims as well, filling up the oil candles with yak butter as they walk from one statue to another.
Since it's also an educational center there are many young monks around, and perhaps they also have some P.E. lessons, because I saw a bunch of young monks playing basketball, while still wearing their robes!
The end of the tour was in the philosophy college, where hundreds of monks were praying. After the prayer we witnessed a philosophy lesson. The teacher was walking between the lines of seated young monks and asked questions. A monk who wanted to answer raised his hand. If his answer was
Butter offering
This thing is made of butter! accepted by the crowed they started to chant together a "ho, ho, ho", and if somebody disagreed he had to raise his hand and then a short debate would begin while some people are "ho, ho, ho"ing when they agree with something that somebody else said. It was interesting, even though I couldn't understand a word...
As usual, I like to walk around the less touristic parts and meet people. This time it was a group of young kids, with an older girl dressed like a young monk. They had a little dog that they wanted me to picture, and they really like to keep my pen as a gift.
Off course that I did the kora myself with all the pilgrims, even thought I didn't spin the prayer wheels, so it was faster.
One building worth mentioning in the monastery is the Gongtang Pagoda. The short kora around its base was always full of pilgrims, and I visited the place three times in three different days and always saw the same person walking around it like a zombie. I climbed it for the nice views of all the monastery from the top.
I spent three days in Xiahe, walking
around the monastery, the Tibetan part of the town, and the small Muslim side of the town (with a Chinese style mosque as well). The city feels alive, with people looking like they are from the wild west, many monks, many pilgrims, a great atmosphere. It really gave me a final push towards Tibet, and I really wanted to get there already...
Until next time,
R.
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Judy Whitehead
non-member comment
I've been there, too
Your pictures are wonderful and esxactly as I remembered them in Xiahe two years ago. The place mesmerized me. I was traveling with 10 friends from Atlanta, Ga - following the old Silk Road from Xian to Kashgar, with a detour to Xiahe. I remember the bus ride as being very bumpy and long, but with amazing scenery. I would love to return - thanks for the memories.